ESPN released the results of its first straw poll of the 2024-25 NBA season regarding the MVP race on Friday. Unsurprisingly, Denver Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic — who is nearly averaging a 31-point triple-double across 22 games played to this point — finished with the most points of any of the vote-getters.
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Milwaukee Bucks big man Giannis Antetokounmpo, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic also finished in the top five.
But what may surprise some NBA fans, particularly those who have been closely following the Cleveland Cavaliers, is that star guard Donovan Mitchell came in at sixth in the straw poll.
“Mitchell’s MVP case centers around being the best player on the best team,” ESPN’s Tim Bontemps wrote. “But despite Cleveland’s NBA-best 23-4 start, the guard sits in sixth.”
Mitchell is leading the way for a Cavaliers team that is on pace for a historically successful regular season. Cleveland is on track to finish the campaign with 70 wins, and the 28-year-old is averaging a team-high 23.3 points per game while shooting 44.8 percent from the field and a career-high 40.4 percent from 3-point range.
However, he has debatably been in a scoring slump as of late, at least by his standards. Mitchell has scored 20-plus points in just one of his last four games played, and in Cleveland’s loss to the Miami Heat on Dec. 8, he dropped just 12 points on 5-of-16 shooting from the floor.
Plus, he has totaled 30 or more points in a game just once since the start of December. On the very first day of the month, he went off for 35 points in a win over the Boston Celtics, the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference at the moment.
Mitchell will try to have his first huge scoring night in some time when the Cavaliers play their next contest against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night.
The Bucks just recently won the NBA Cup after they defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in the title game, and Milwaukee owns the No. 5 seed in the East with a record of 14-11. Few teams in the NBA have played better basketball than the Bucks over the past few weeks after the squad seemed primed for a down year at the start of the season.
